HIGHLIGHTS

Rio Tinto to work with the Centre and MP govt to find a third party investor.

Mining giant Rio Tinto on Friday announced that it was withdrawing from the high profile Bunder diamond mining project based in Madhya Pradesh's Chattarpur district. The decision comes as a setback to Madhya Pradesh that had showcased the big ticket investment project as the game changer for the backward Bundelkhand region.

The total investment required to develop the mine was estimated to be about Rs 2000 crore.

ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN AND INVESTMENT WOES

A statement from Rio Tinto said that the company was carrying out an assessment of all ongoing projects across the world so that it can work efficiently in this phase of economic slowdown and give returns to their investors. In the course of this assessment, the company has decided to not proceed further with the Bunder diamond mining project and would try and wind up all infrastructure by end of 2016.

Kamal Sethi, a spokesperson for Rio Tinto confirmed the development.

THIRD PARTY INVESTOR FOR BUNDER PROJECT

The company further said that it would work with the Union government and Madhya Pradesh government to find a third party investor for the project.

Rio Tinto had begun a regional exploration program in 2002 and discovered diamond deposits in 2004. A prospecting lease was granted in September 2006 and as per an order of magnitude study of October 2008, the Bunder mines were expected to yield 37.4 million tonnes of kimberlite containing 27.4 million carats of diamonds.

RIO TINTO RAN INTO TROUBLE OVER ENVIRONMENT CONCERNS

Rio Tinto had even constructed a state of the art sample mining plant at Bunder. The company had secured an in principle approval for the mining lease from the MP government and a mining plan was cleared by the Indian Bureau of Mines in 2013.

However, the project had run into trouble over environment concerns when the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) had in November 2015 raised queries over proposed felling of trees in dense forests. The application for mining lease is presently pending FAC approval.

Do You Like This Story? Awesome! Now share the story Too bad. Tell us what you didn't like in the comments